They innovate out of genuine curiosity and pride. They like to prototype and play. Many of them care far more about cleverness and creativity than they do about any of the technology's potential financial benefit. Like the hobbyists of the 1970s did for computers, this new crop of garage tinkerers may be the future of biotechnology.

A ragtag group of computer hobbyists called the Homebrew Computer Club, formed in a garage in 1975, produced Apple founders Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. Now, as the tools of biotechnology become both accessible and affordable to a wider public for the first time, "hobbyists are recapturing that collaborative ethos and applying it to tinkering with the building blocks of life," Wired recently noted.

Biology presents a new medium for do-it-yourself (DIY) engineering and basement tinkering. It is entirely possible that hobbyists could be part of the future of significant biotechnology, which is simply a different form of programming from Homebrew's, in a wetter, much more complex operating system.

Take the Biotech Hobbyist collective, for instance. Just as the computer hobbyists sought unconventional applications for computer circuitry, this collective is looking for "non-prescribed uses" of biotechnology, according to Eugene Thacker, a Biotech Hobbyist member and Georgia Tech professor of literature, culture and communications.

The group, which has published a set of informal DIY articles, has dedicated its site as "the place on the Web for biotech tinkerers, builders, experimenters, students, and others who love the intellectual challenge and stimulation of hobby biotech." In his article "Personal Biocomputing", Thacker walks readers through the steps of performing a basic computation using a DNA "computer." The tools for the project, Wired notes, include a $100 high school science-education kit and some used lab equipment.

Other of the collective's how-to articles guide readers through artificially growing human tissue and cultivating skin cells in "Skin Culture", as well as making uniform copies of plant tissue in "Tree Cloning".

Natalie Jeremijenko, an engineer, artist and professor of Visual Arts at the University of California at San Diego, began the Collective in 1997. (Jeremijenko's own sometimes-controversial work merges engineering, biology and art to explore socio-political hot spots where information meets design meets society.) The artist-engineer says the virtue of the hobbyist's "hands-on, DIY mentality" lies in its power to engage a wider audience in the issues surrounding biotechnology.

"Messing with the stuff of the future allows you to have an opinion and to participate in the political process that determines our technological future," Wired quoted Jeremijenko. "It's a little theoretical; it's also fun."

Now the tools for biotech amateurs are readily available for everyday folk like you and I to purchase. Look around online and you'll find that even eBay has an entire section dedicated to exclusively to used laboratory equipment.

So with this kind of access and obvious hobbyist interest, why hasn't amateur DIY biotechnology thus far spread further?

Even going back to October 2004, there was talk of an "amateur revolution," not exclusive to the so-called basement biotech, wherein the "committed, networked amateurs working to professional standards" were presumed to help "reshape society in the next two decades."

Drew Endy, a biological engineering professor at MIT, told Wired that the main factor limiting an amateur biotech community is the immaturity of the technology. While it may be cheap, it remains "extraordinarily difficult," as "the technology isn't reliable enough."

An additional obstacle, according to Endy, lies in that people remain uncomfortable with the responsibility that comes with manipulating genetics -- a responsibility a far cry from simply manipulating computers.

Further, the case of Steve Kurtz, a professor and artist who has had to defend himself against accusations of "bio-terrorism" after local police happened upon his amateur home lab in May 2004, appears to have had a "moderate chilling effect," says Wired. Scientists, who are needed by amateurs, now are more hesitant to get involved, according to Kurtz. And at least one biokit-selling company "now refuses to sell to the general public."

Despite the obstacles, amateur engagement looks likely to continue. Certainly, for these biotech hobbyists, the technologies are closer than they've ever been. Is it possible that these tinkerers are the future of biotechnology? Perhaps this decade will bring a Steve Jobs or Bill Gates of basement biotech — a hobbyist-turned-entrepreneur who can simultaneously innovate and market his or her DNA-driven ideas.


Resource

Tweaking Genes in the Basement
by Allen Riddell
Wired, July 06, 2006